The horror of being scammed

I was hit by a spammer - an email sent out to every one of my over 200 contacts that asked them to help me by sending money to me in Essex, UK.

Of course, I didn't know about it until I tried to get into my Yahoo account and found myself locked out. I can't remember which came first - perhaps I received a phone call from a friend asking if I was alright.

Was I really in the UK stranded without ID and credit cards and cash to pay my exorbitant hotel bill.

I had seen this same request for help many months before this happened to me. And although I did not have spare cash to send to my acquaintance, I did call her. Receiving no reply to my message, I then looked for her Facebook profile - finding nothing relevant, I decided that if she was indeed in trouble, then she would more than likely go to her family for support - not to me.

I spend quite a bit of time trying to recover my Yahoo email account - answering security questions, but one of the answers - that I had set up my self, of course, I could not remember so I had to figure out a way to recover this information.

A book written by my father's cousin - a family tree type of book - sitting on my bookshelf was where I finally found the answer.

Account recovered - I discovered all of my contacts had been deleted (or lifted by the spammer). Yes, I was ready to pommel her/him. It boggles my mind why any human being - or how any human being even thinks about doing this. Anyway I guess the world is abundant in people with distorted thinking - heck my own thinking is distorted much of the time too.

So without email addresses, it is hard to communicate with that many people - most of whom probably do not even remember who I am - I had that same account for many many years - one of the security questions asked by Yahoo - why would I even need to remember the date that I opened the account! Now I know.

So then I went to my gmail accounts - Still can't believe that my primary gmail account was locked as well - and the security questions asked by Google also ask for dates - most of which I had also forgotten - I try to guesstimate but no such luck - I have been totally locked out - again with very important contact information.

Frustrating does not begin to describe my feelings - I felt completely helpless and amazed again about the minds of human beings to create such havoc in someone's life.

So, thank God for my ability to restore peace and calm in my life - all credit being given to my regular practice of meditation. Yes, I had very low moments but was quickly able to restore my peace - because frankly, nothing is more important than my peace.

I lifted email addresses out of my Yahoo email messages before I finally closed the account. So I was able to send them emails from another account - gmail. I apologized for the inconvenience caused to them.

Weeks later I received a phone call from a friend who I hadn't heard from for quite a while. Long story short, she had received the request for help - was preparing to send me the money, until her husband did his research and with a number of back and forth messages to the scammer, drove the "B" away because he lacked the required information to legitimately receive the funds. Thank God!

This criminal is still at it and a friend told me last night that people throughout the Fraser Valley have had been scammed.

I feel saddened by this, and another non-fraudulent advertising scheme I got caught up in - these folks at DazzleWhite have been collecting money from people through VISA - because they did not read the fine print in the Terms and Conditions. Hours of my time have been spent canceling charges on my account - with the wonderful help of VISA - and although the $$$$ amount has not been exorbitant - the transactions are in very small amounts so at first glance at your statement - they are hardly noticeable - if you are like I was - not thorough enough.

Have I learned lessons? OH YES! - never will I allow my statement to go unchecked before I make my payment.

Both these inconveniences have been tests by the Universe - to show me that I have choices - pain and suffering - or inner peace. That is freedom, and I am even more consciously aware and grateful for my ability to choose peace in this moment.